"LG said today it was acquiring WebOS from Hewlett-Packard, with the intention to use the operating system not for its mobile phones, but in its smart televisions. With the deal, LG obtains the source code for WebOS, related documentation, engineering talent, and related WebOS Web sites. LG also gets HP licenses for use with its WebOS products, and patents HP obtained from Palm. The financial terms of the deal weren't disclosed." Completely and utterly pointless. Smart TVs are a dead end. The TV should just remain a dumb receiver for input - whether from a computer or console via cables, or wirelessly from a smartphone or tablet. Our phones and tablets are already smart so TVs don't have to be.

I really dislike the idea of twenty different smartish devices thrown together, all conspiring to get my attention by offering mostly the same services, at different degrees of obsolescence. Should I watch Netflix on the games console, the SmartTV, the PVR, my cellphone via HDMI, or my tablet via Miracast?

When I spend 800€ in a new TV, I would much rather they all went to pay for size and image quality, but unless you go for the cheapest of the cheapest there is no way to skip the SmartTV and the 3D tax.

And when in two years time that TV set looks just about as good as the new ones, but its smart guts are hopelessly outdated, I will need an external SmartTV box anyway. And then, for years I will have to put up with a sad unneeded bunch of obsolete buttons in the remote and a TV user interface cluttered with useless crap. But fat chance if they think I will buy a new TV just to save me that trouble.